1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to slip-resistant machine washable floor mats that are especially useful in motor vehicles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The interior of most motor vehicles has a carpeted floor. Motor vehicle dealerships and auto accessory retail stores offer floor mats that may be positioned atop the carpeted vehicle floor to protect the floor from dirt, abrasion and stains. Such mats may be flat sheets of vinyl or rubber having nips or prongs protruding from one surface. When the sheet is placed atop a carpeted floor with its nipped or pronged side against the carpet, the nips or prongs dig or grab the carpet fibers to prevent substantial sliding movement so as to keep the mat in position.
Alternatively, the mats may be formed by a combination of the pronged or nipped sheet of vinyl or rubber with an attached upper facing layer of carpet. The prongs again prevent the mat from substantially sliding out of place once the mat is positioned on the carpeted floor of the motor vehicle.
To better maintain the mat in position, certain floor mats have attached velcro or snaps to mate with snaps provided in the vehicle interior. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,742 discloses a floor mat retention system where the floor mat is removably attached to the vehicle with fastening means.
These current floor mats have disadvantages. The nips or prongs of the vinyl mats poke holes or divots into the vehicle carpet, damaging and detracting from the appearance. Where the nips or prongs do not penetrate or dig far enough into the carpet, the mats do not remain substantially in place, but slide out of position. The addition of velcro or snaps is an added cost. The vehicle manufacturer may not supply mating snaps or velcro or the vehicle may not have sufficient space for one to add such fasteners to the vehicle at a later time. The stiff vinyl or rubber that forms the lower layer of the mat is less flexible than carpet alone. Hence, the floor mats with such stiff lower surfaces lack ability to bend around corners or contour to the curves of the vehicle floor. Moreover, these current floor mats are not machine washable due to their high mass and stiffness.
One existing floor mat comprises a layer of carpet on top with a stiffening layer in the middle and a layer of nonreticulated fine-celled foam on the bottom and bonded to the stiffening layer. Fine-celled foam has pore sizes generally greater than 50 pores per linear inch (foam cell diameter of about 0.05 inch). These existing mats lack means to hold them in position on the floor and resist slipping. Moreover, the mats are not machine washable because, among other things, the stiffening layer and the fine-celled foam of the bottom layer used in these mats are not sufficiently air permeable. Moreover, the high mass stiffening layer lacks flexibility and could not be machine washed without harming the tub and moving parts of the washing machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,804,699 discloses a slip-resistant mat that has a facing layer of carpeting fabric bonded to a gripping layer of slit polyurethane foam with a bonding layer that contributes required high mass (at least 2 pounds per square yard) and limited flex characteristics to the mat. The bonding layer is the sole adhesive between the facing and gripping layers and provides the mass and isotropic wrinkle resistance to assure that the gripping layer resists lifting forces in traffic and remains in operable contact with the carpeted surface upon which the mat is placed. The mat is not machine washable because, among other things, the high mass bonding layer is not sufficiently air permeable nor sufficiently flexible to be washed in a machine.
A floor mat with a disposable inner absorbent pad is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,135. Once the absorbent pad absorbs liquids and dirt that pass through a top screen, the pad may be removed, discarded and replaced with a fresh pad. The entire floor mat cannot be machine washed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,358,768 discloses a similar mat for the floor of a vehicle in which the top carpet layer is attached to a lower mat of rubber or plastic with Velcro.RTM. fasteners. The carpet layer can be removed, cleaned and repositioned, but the entire mat cannot be machine washed.
The slip-resistant floor mats of the present invention eliminate these disadvantages.